On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed amid heavy rush-hour traffic, resulting in the deaths of 46 people, two of whom were never found.

Investigation of the wreckage soon pointed to the failure of a single eyebar in one of the suspension chains as the primary cause — a finding noted in a preliminary report released within 10 months of the collapse.

[5] However, to explain why that eyebar failed — a failure triggered by a flaw just 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) deep, which led to a fracture — required significantly more time and effort to uncover, with the final accident report[6] taking three years to complete.

(By contrast, a chain break occurring, say, in the center part of the span would have resulted in the towers falling in opposite directions, away from each other.

[6]: 15  A few years earlier, in 1923, AASHO, a national standards-setting organization, had released documentation to aid engineers in designing bridges — providing quality-control specifications and guidelines on topics such as computing forces and loads, types and properties of steel, and estimating future traffic levels.

[6]: 98 According to the Point Pleasant River Museum, a total of 44 of 46 victims were recovered and identified following the collapse of the Silver Bridge.

[15]The collapse focused much-needed attention on the condition of older bridges, leading to intensified inspection protocols and numerous eventual replacements.

Modern non-destructive testing methods allow some of the older bridges to remain in service, but with tighter weight restrictions.

The collapse inspired legislation to ensure that older bridges were regularly inspected and maintained; however, aging infrastructure is still a problem in the United States.

In early September 2009, the failure of an eyebar in the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge was discovered during a scheduled closure, resulting in an emergency repair to reinforce the failed member.

The museum closed on July 1, 2018, when it received heavy damage due to an attic fire but was later moved to a new building and reopened in 2024.

[17] Another eyebar example has been erected for public viewing at a small rest area on the Ohio side of the river, along Route 7.

As a result of the thoroughness of the investigation, the cause of the disaster was precisely and indisputably found to be "a design that inadvertently made inspection all but impossible and failure all but inevitable.

[20] Author Jack Matthews wrote a novella, Beyond the Bridge, written as the diary of an imaginary survivor of the disaster starting a new life as a dishwasher in a tiny West Virginia town.

Honky tonk singer-songwriter and West Virginia native Ray Anderson released "The Silver Bridge Disaster" as the A-side of a 1967 single.

Author James Tynion IV uses both the mothman and the bridge as a plot point in his ongoing comic The Department of Truth.

[23] The bridge carries US 35 across the river and serves as a major crossing for people and goods traveling between Charleston, West Virginia, and Southern and Central Ohio.